Mesopotamian Religion
Mesopotamian Religion, also known as Assyro-Babylonian religion, included a series of belief systems of the early civilizations of the Euphrates valley. The development of the religion of this region was not only important in the history of the people who practiced it, but also strongly influence the semitic peoples from who the Hebrew religion tradition evolved. Moreover, many of the older Mesopotamian religious ideas worked their way west through Assyrian and Canaanite tradition into the Greek and Roman culture as well.
The periods in the development of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion may be divided as follows:
- the oldest period from c. 3500 B.C.E. to the time of Hammurabi (c. 1700 B.C.E.)
- the post-Hammurabic period in Babylonia
- the Assyrian period (c. 1365 B.C.E.) to the destruction of Nineveh in 612 B.C.E.
- the neo-Babylonian period, beginning with Nabopolassar (625 B.C.E.-605 B.C.E.) and ending with Cyrus's conquest of Babylon and Babylonia in 539 B.C.E.
Mesopotamian religion left a profound mark on human civilization. Both the Judeo-Christian and Graeco-Roman tradition have inherited much from the religion of the "Land between the Rivers."
Early Mesopotamian Religion
As outsiders looking in on an ancient civilization whose diverse religious traditions died out long ago, scholars have struggled to construct a comprehensive picture of Mesopotamian religion without resorting to a great deal of speculation. This problem led one expert in the field, A. Leo Oppenheim, to conclude that a history of Mesopotamian religion "should not be written".[1] The study of Mesopotamian religion is complicated, especially in its early phase, by the fact that similar deities are often given different names in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. Non-experts have trouble realizing the Inanna and Ishtar, or Enki and Ea are actually names of just two, not four deities, for example. Moreover, over the period of millennia, the gods evolved from local deities to more universal ones, sometimes taking on the attributes of older gods or each other. What may be a true statement about Mesopotamian religion in one period may thus be misleading when applied to a later time.
A divine genealogy
The early deities of Mesopotamia were later referred to as the Anunnaki gods—a group of Sumerian and Akkadian deities related to, and in some cases overlapping with, the Annuna (the 'Fifty Great Gods'). The head of the Anunnaki council, in later mythology, was the Great Anu. The Anunnaki were seen as the children of Anu (heaven) and Ki (earth), brother and sister gods, themselves the children of Anshar and Kishar (Skypivot and Earthpivot, the Celestial poles). Anshar and Kishar in turn were the children of Lahm and Lahmu ("the muddy ones"). The parents of Lahm and Lahmu were Apsû (fresh water) and Tiamat (salt water). In the Enuma Elish, the Tiamat is the sea, personified as a female sea monster and a embodiment of primordial chaos. She gives birth to the first generation of gods; but she later makes war upon them and is split in two by the storm-god Marduk, who uses her body to form the heavens and the earth.
However, because the text of Enuma Elish is relatively late, it is difficult to know much about how the Anunnaki may have been conceived of or worshiped in earlier centuries. Moreover, although many early Mesopotamian religious temples and monuments have been discovered, texts and inscriptions are relatively rare. Among the religious texts that have been discovered, three types have been identified: prayers, rituals, and mythologies. Temples and monuments also tell us something of the religious culture and practice, while icons and other art elaborate on religious ritual and mythology.
There is evidence that religious temples and rituals played an important part in Mesopotamian life quite early, preceding even the advent of writing. Temples normally occupied the central and highest ground in a settlement. They possessed the town's most sophisticated and high-quality artifacts.
Uruk
Uruk was one of the oldest and most important cities of ancient Sumer. According to the Sumerian king list, Uruk was founded by Enmerkar, who brought the official kingship with him. In the epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, he is also said to have constructed the famous temple called E-anna, dedicated to the worship of Inanna (later called Ishtar). Uruk was also the capital city of the probably historical king Gilgamesh, hero of the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. According to the Bible (Genesis 10:10), Erech (Uruk) was the second city founded by Nimrod in Shinar.
The White Temple of Uruk contained several separate shrines within the confines of its walls, which measured 400 by 200 meters. In addition to temples, the stepped-stone towers known as ziggurats were also common. One of these is no doubt the basis for the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
There are some reasons for believing that the original seat of the worship of Anu, the Sumerian god of heaven (or sky), was also in Uruk. However, much like El in Canaan, Anu remained more or less a distant deity during the various periods of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, and took little part in the active cult of the temples. Various other deities were associated with other cities.
Triads of gods
Anu's position as the chief god expression in his portrayal as the first figure of a triad, consisting of Anu, Enlil and Ea (Enki), who reigned over the heavens, the earth, and the watery expanse, respectively.
The mother goddess, Ishtar, meanwhile remained a powerful presence in her own right, often associated with male deities as their consort or as a fierce warrior and protector. She was frequently associated with Marduk, and still more closely with the chief god of Assyria, Assur, who occupied in Northern Mesopotamia a position similar to that of Marduk in the south.
By the side of the first triad, consisting of Anu, Enlil, and Ea was sometimes found a second triad composed of Shamash, Sin, and Ishtar. As the first triad symbolized the three divisions of the univers—the heavens, earth and the watery element—so the second represented the three great forces of nature: the sun, the moon and the life-giving power. In addition, at times Ishtar also appears in hymns and myths as the general personification of nature. A seventh great Sumerian deity, the mother goddess Ninhursag/Ninmah, seems to have declined in popularity as Ishtar's popularity increased.
The impact of Hammurabi
A sharp distinction can be made between the pre-Hammurabic age and the post-Hammurabic age. Before 1700 B.C.E., there were a number of religious centers in addition to Uruk: Nippur, Kutha (Cuthah), Ur, Sippar, Shirgulla (Lagash), Eridu, and Agade. Each tended to honor a specific god was looked upon as the chief deity around whom were gathered a number of minor deities and with whom there was invariably associated a female consort. The period around 1700 B.C.E., when Hammurabi effected the union of the Euphratean states, marks the beginning of a new epoch in the religion of the Euphrates valley. In the post-Hammurabic period, the pantheon assumed distinct shapes. The deity Marduk began to emerge as the central and supreme deity, though by no means the only god. Paralleling the centralization of political administration, the gods of the chief religious centers, together with those of the minor local shrines, formed a group around Marduk.
Despite a decided progress toward a monotheistic conception of divine government of the universe, the recognition of a large number of gods and their consorts by the side of Marduk remained firmly embedded doctrine in the Babylonian religion, as it did in the Assyrian religion. An important variation, however, was that the role of the head of the pantheon in Assyria was held by Assur rather than Marduk.
The rise of Marduk
The jurisdiction of this chief god was limited to the extent of political control of the district exercised by the deity's capital city. Earlier, at Nippur, and later in Ur, attempts were made to group the deities associated with the most important religious centers into a regular pantheon. Teh goddess Inanna (or Ishtar) in particularly came to be widely honored, as did male counterparts to the goddess such as Enlil and Enki. However, movements toward widespread recognition and unity lacked the enduring quality of Hammurabi's policy to raise Marduk—the patron deity of the future capital, Babylon—to the head of the Babylonian pantheon.[2] Associated with Marduk was his female consort Sarpanit, who may have been identified with Ishtar/Inanna in the popular imagination. Grouped around this pair, as princes around a throne, were the chief deities of the older religious centers:Ea and Damkina of Eridu; Nabu and Tashmit of Borsippa; Nergal and Allatu of Kutha; Shamash of Sippar; Sin and Ningal of Ur, as well as other deities who locations are unknown.
In this process of accommodating ancient prerogatives to new conditions, the attributes belonging specifically to the older gods was transferred to Marduk, who thus became an eclectic and many-faceted power, taking on the traits of Enlil (wind, rain, fertility), Enki/Ea (intelligence, water), Shamash (the sun), Nergal (underworld), Adad (storm), and Sin (the moon). The epic mythology contained in the text of the Enuma Elish describes remarkably the legendary version of Marduk's rise to power over the older gods.
Scholars theorize that the older incantations, associated with Ea, were re-edited so as to give to Marduk the supreme power over demons, witches and sorcerers. The hymns and lamentations, composed for the cult of Enlil, Shamash, and Adad were transformed into paeans and appeals to Marduk. Meanwhile, the ancient myths arising in the various religious and political centers underwent a similar process of adaptation to changed conditions. As a consequence, their original meaning was obscured by the as all mighty deeds and acts—originally symbolic of the change of seasons or of occurrences in nature—were assigned to the supreme head of the entire Babylonian pantheon.
Besides the chief deities and their consorts, various minor ones, representing, likewise, patron gods of less important localities, were added at one time or another to the court of Marduk. Thus the Enuma Elish closes with a list of (a thousand???) divine titles by which Marduk would henceforth be known after his great victory. However, these lesser deities still retained, for the most part, their independence—for example, Anu was still the god of the high heavens, and Ishtar still symbolized fertility and vitality in general.
The rivalry between Assur and Marduk
Originally the patron god of the city which bore his name, Assur came to hold nthe same position in the north that Marduk occupied in the south. The religious predominance of the great city of Babylon served to gain recognition for Marduk even on the part of the Assyrian rulers, even when, as kings of Assyria, they exercised absolute control over it. They appointed their sons or brothers governors of Babylonia, and in the long array of titles that the kings gave themselves, a special phrase was set aside to indicate their mastery over Babylonia. To "take the hand of Bel-Marduk" Babylonians as was an essential ritual preliminary to exercising authority in the Euphrates valley.
Marduk and Assur became rivals only when Babylonia became to give the Assyrians trouble. In 689 B.C.E., the Assyrian king Sennacherib, whose patience had been exhausted by the difficulties encountered in maintaining peace in the south, besieged and destroyed the city of Babylon. He brought the city's statue of Marduk to Nineveh, to symbolize that the god's subordination. His grandson, Assur-bani-pal, with a view of reestablishing amicable relations, restored the statue to the temple E-Saggila in Babylon and performed the time-honored ceremony of "taking the hand of Bel" to demonstrate his homage to the ancient head of the Babylonian pantheon.
Other than the substitution of Assur for Marduk, the Assyrian pantheon was the basically the same as that in the south, though some of the gods were endowed with attributes which differ slightly from their southern counterparts. The war-like nature of the Assyrians was reflected in their conceptions of the gods, who stood by the side of the great protector Assur. The cult and ritual in the north likewise followed the models set up in the south. Hymns composed for the temples of Babylonia were transferred to Assur, Calah, Harran, Arbela, and Nineveh in the north. Myths and legends also found their way to Assyria in modified form. To all practical purposes, however, the religion of Assyria was very similar with that practiced in the south.
Astral theology
Astral theology served as the theoretical substratum of the Babylonian religion, and was equally pronounced in the religious system of Assyria. The essential feature of this astral theology is the assumption of a close link between the movements going on in the heavens and occurrences on earth. This led to identifying the gods and goddesses with heavenly bodies and to assigning the seats of all the deities in the heavens.
The personification of the two great luminaries—the sun and the moon (Shamash and Sin)—was the first step in the unfolding of this system. This process, which reached its culmination in the post-Hammurabic period, led to identifying the planet Venus with Ishtar, Jupiter with Marduk, Mars with Nergal, Mercury with Nabu, and Saturn with Ninurta.
To read the signs of the heavens was to understand the meaning of occurrences on earth. With this accomplished, it was also possible to foretell what events were portended by the position and relationship to one another of sun, moon, planets and certain stars. Myths that symbolized changes in season or occurrences in nature were projected on the heavens, which were mapped out to correspond to the divisions of the earth.
All the gods, great and small, had their places assigned to them in the heavens. Facts, including political history, were interpreted in terms of astral theology. Worship, originally an expression of animistic beliefs, took on the character of an "astral" interpretation of occurrences and doctrines. This left its trace in incantations, omens and hymns. It also gave birth toastronomy, which was assiduously cultivated because a knowledge of the heavens was the very foundation of the system of belief unfolded by the priests of Babylonia and Assyria.
As an illustration of the manner in which the doctrines of the religion conformed with all-pervading astral theory can be seen in the development of the concept of the three gods Anu, Enlil and Ea, who were originally local deities. Anu became the power presiding over the heavens. Enlil ruled the earth and the atmosphere immediately above it, while Ea ruled over the deep. With the transfer of all the gods to the heavens, and under the influence of the doctrine of the correspondence between the heavens and the earth, Anu, Enlil and Ea became the three "ways" of the divine realm.
The "ways" appear in this instance to have been the designation of the ecliptic circle, which was divided into three sections or zones—a northern, a middle and a southern zone, Anu being assigned to the first, Enlil to the second, and Ea to the third zone.
Religious practice and rituals
The most noteworthy outcome of this system in the realm of religious practice was the growth of a sophisticated method of divining the future by the observation of the phenomena in the heavens. In the royal collection of cuneiform literature—made by King Assur-bani-pal of Assyria (668-626 B.C.E.) and deposited in his palace at Nineveh—the omen collections connected with the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria form the largest class.
There are also indications that the extensive texts dealing with divination through the liver of sacrificial animals, based as it is on the primitive view which regarded the liver as the seat of life and of the soul, were brought into connection with astral divination. Less influenced by the astral-theological system are the older incantation texts. These included formulae and prayers produced in different religious center and updated to conform to the tendency to centralize the worship of Marduk and his female counterpart in the south and Assur and Ishtar in the north. Incantations originally addressed to Ea as the god of the watery element and to Nusku as the god of fire, were likewise transferred to Marduk. This was done by making Ea confer on Marduk as his son, the powers of the father, and by making Nusku, a messenger between Ea and Marduk.
Ritual was a chief factor in the celebration of festival days and is relatively free from traces of the astral theology. The more or less elaborate ceremonies prescribed for the occasions when the gods were approached are directly connected with the popular elements of the religion. Animal sacrifice, libations, ritual purification, sprinkling of water, and symbolical rites of all kinds, accompanied by short prayers, represent a religious practice which in the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, as in all religions, is older than any theology and survives the changes which the theoretical substratum of the religion undergoes.
Ethics
On the ethical side, the religion of Babylonia more particularly, and to a less extent that of Assyria, advances to noticeable conceptions of the qualities associated with the gods and goddesses and of the duties imposed on man. Shamash, the sun-god, was invested with justice as his chief trait. Marduk is portrayed as full of mercy and kindness. Ea is the protector of mankind. The gods, to be sure, are easily aroused to anger. No sharp distinction is made—is in Israelite prophetic religion— between moral offenses and ritualistic oversight or neglect. However, the stress laid on the need of being clean and pure in the sight of the higher powers, the inculcation of a proper aspect of humility, and above all the need of confessing one's guilt and sins without any reserve.
Regarding life after death, throughout Babylonian-Assyrian history, the conception prevailed of a large dark cavern below the earth, not far from the Apsu—the fresh water abyss encircling and flowing underneath the earth—in which all the dead were gathered and where they led a miserable existence of inactivity, amid gloom and dust. Occasionally a favored individual was permitted to escape from this general fate and placed in a pleasant island.
Later influence
The influence exerted by the Babylonian-Assyrian religion was particularly profound on the Semites, while the astral theology affected the ancient world in general, including the Greeks and Romans. Scholars can easily trace such sublime pagan deities as Venus to Ishtar, Poseidon to Ea, etc. Indeed, the Israelite and Jewish religion itself was strongly influenced by the remarkable civilization unfolded in the Euphrates valley. In many of the traditions embodied in the Old Testament, traces of direct borrowing from Babylonia may be discerned: for example the story of Noah's flood (Epic of Gilgamesh) and the creation account of the early verses of Genesis (Enuma Elish). Indirect influences have been noticed in the domain of the prophetical books and the Psalms. The Babylonian influence on so-called "Wisdom Literature" has also been much discussed. During the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, it would be to Marduk that Cyrus the Great dedicated his policy of allowing the Jewish and other captive priests to return to their capitals and refurbish the sacred temples of their deities.
Even when in the New Testament period Babylonian-Assyrian influences may be present. In such a movement as early Christian gnosticism, Babylonian elements—modified, to be sure, and transformed—are present. The growth of apocalyptic literature, both Jewish and Christian seems to be influenced to some degree at least by the astral-theology of the Babylonia and Assyria.
Notes
- ↑ Oppenheim, A. Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. University of Chicago Press, 1974, page, 171.
- ↑ Students of the Old Testament may recognize a similar principle in the centralization of political power in Jerusalem resulting in the increasing tendency toward monotheism centering on Yahweh in Israelite religion.
This article was originally based on content from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period. Cuneiform monographs, 23. Leiden: Brill, 2003. ISBN 9789004130241
- Gordon, Cyrus. The Ancient Near East, 3rd Edition, Revised. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York, 1965.
- Holloway, Steven W. Aššur Is King! Aššur Is King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Culture and history of the ancient Near East, v. 10. Leiden: Brill, 2002. ISBN 9781417590926
- Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. ISBN 9780300018448
- Linssen, Marc J. H. The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts As Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practises. Cuneiform monographs, 25. Leiden: Brill, Styx, 2004. ISBN 9789004124028
- Oppenheim, A. Leo, and Erica Reiner. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. ISBN 9780226631875
- Rochberg, Francesca. The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 9780521830102
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
